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Nationalist Ethnicities As Religious Identities: Islam, Buddhism, and Citizenship in Myanmar Imtiyaz Yusuf

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Nationalist Ethnicities As Religious Identities: Islam, Buddhism, and Citizenship in Myanmar Imtiyaz Yusuf ajiss34-4-noconfrep_ajiss 11/3/2017 9:31 AM Page 100 Forum Nationalist Ethnicities as Religious Identities: Islam, Buddhism, and Citizenship in Myanmar Imtiyaz Yusuf Preliminary Statement: An Overview of Muslim-Buddhist Relations For centuries, the Rohingya have been living within the borders of the coun - try established in 1948 as Burma/Myanmar. Today left stateless, having been gradually stripped of their citizenship rights, they are described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. In order to understand the complexity of this conflict, one must consider how Burma is politically transitioning from military to democratic rule, a process that is open (much as was Afghanistan) to competition for resources by in - ternational and regional players such as the United States, China, India, Is - rael, Japan, and Australia. 1 To be fair, the record of Southeast Asian Muslim countries with Buddhist minorities is also not outstanding. Buddhist minori - ties identified as ethnic groups have faced great discrimination in, among others, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. 2 Imtiyaz Yusuf is the director of the Center for Buddhist-Muslim Understanding, College of Religious Studies, Mahidol University, Salaya, Thailand. His recent publications are A Plane - tary and Global Ethics for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (2016); “Muslim-Buddhist Relations Caught between Nalanda and Pattani,” in Ethnicity and Conflict in Buddhist Societies in South and Southeast Asia , ed. K.M. de Silva (2015) and “Islam and Buddhism,” in Wiley- Blackwell Companion to Interreligious Dialogue , ed. Catherine Cornille (2013). In addition to being a contributor to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic World (2009), the Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2003), the Encyclopedia of Qur’an (2002), and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Modern Islamic World (1995), he was also the special editor of The Muslim World: A Special Issue on Islam and Buddhism 100, nos. 2-3 (April/July 2010). Dr. Yusuf often writes on Islam and com - parative religion in Southeast Asia for the Bangkok Post and The Nation (Bangkok). ajiss34-4-noconfrep_ajiss 11/3/2017 9:31 AM Page 101 Yusuf: Nationalist Ethnicities as Religious Identities 101 As Muslim nationalist causes, the Rohingya case may be compared to that of Palestine, Kashmir, the Moros, and the Pattani Malays. Muslims worldwide have been sympathetic and supportive of the Rohingya, but there is more to their plight than a conflict between Islam and Buddhism. I study the history of the relationship between Islam and Buddhism, world - views and traditions whose often cordial and sometimes tense relations ex - tend from the early days of Islam. It is clear to me that contemporary Muslim-Buddhist tensions cannot be understood simply through the lenses of religion. This approach offers fodder for forms of Islamophobia with an Asian face, now with respect to coexisting religions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism. Early Muslims met Buddhists along Asian travel routes and accorded them the status of ahl al-kitāb (people of the book) long before European Christians came to know of Buddhism through the fourteenth-century trav - els of Marco Polo. Muslim scholars, whom I regard as pioneers of the phe - nomenological and comparative historical approaches to the study of religion – including al-Biruni, al-Shahrastani, Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, and the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh – wrote extensively about Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and other religions without religious inhibitions. In modern times, the famous Indian poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal paid glowing tributes to the Buddha’s mission and message of the Buddha in his poems Nanak (in Bang-e-Dra 143) and Taseen-e-Gautam (Gautam Budh Ki Taleemat) (in Javed Nama 12). The first comprehensive academic study of Buddhism from a Western Christian perspective, entitled Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme in - dien , was written in 1844 by the great French scholar of Sanskrit Eugène Burnouf. Meanwhile, Muslims largely abandoned the study of Buddhism. 3 It is sad to note that although Muslims and Buddhists make up the two largest religious communities of Southeast Asia (42 and 40 percent, respec - tively, out of a total population of about 568.3 million), and have coexisted for the last 900 years, there is not one Muslim scholar of Buddhism or one Buddhist scholar of Islam. During and after the colonial era, Muslims, unlike their predecessors, abandoned the self-study of Buddhism and thus became dependent upon both the Orientalist and Christian interpretations of that religion. I am often surprised to hear Buddhist monks, when discussing Islamic monotheism, requesting pictorial or figurative illustrations of Allah similar to those of Jesus Christ. Apart from the recent excellent work on Buddhism by Reza Shah Kazemi, 4 the works of Harun Yahya 5 and Imran Nazar Ho - ajiss34-4-noconfrep_ajiss 11/3/2017 9:31 AM Page 102 102 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:4 sein 6 are polemical, criticizing Buddhism from the perspective of Islamic monotheism, while the fact is that Islam and Buddhism are two different religious worldviews that are theologically and doctrinally incompatible and belong to two different geographic religions of Arabia and Asia, re - spectively. This is similar to the case of Zakir Naik and other Muslim preachers who conclusively construe that Prophet Muhammad is the Maitreya (the future Buddha) who, as per the Mahayana branch, is a bodhisattva residing in the Tushita heaven who will descend to preach anew the dharma (doctrine) when the teachings of Gautama Buddha have com - pletely decayed. Since the institution of nubūwwah (prophethood) is a monotheistic institution and not an Indian religious classification, Bud - dhists feel offended by such attributions. Such instances, along with the 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Bud - dhas which had survived 1,422 years of Muslim history, close all doors for building an understanding between Islam and Buddhism in the modern age. 7 Meanwhile, the Buddhist-Christian-Jewish dialogue is flourishing. 8 The main reason for this is that although Southeast Asian Muslims, being the only Muslims living in close proximity to the Buddhists, adopted Islam fer - vently and religiously; however, they did not continue the early Muslim tra - dition of studying their own religious Siva Hindu-Buddhist past concretely and constructively. They threw the baby out with the bath water. Contemporary Muslim social scientists, even those trained in modern anthropological and sociological theories and methods, are largely unfa - miliar with Asian religions. This has meant that academics and laypeople, politicians and monarchs, can at best offer charitable assistance to the Ro - hingya as the fuqarā’ wa al-masakīn (the poor and needy) while accusing Myanmar and Burmese Buddhism of being anti-Muslim. 9 Muslim social scientists are unable to offer any knowledge, planning, or strategies for how to engage the Myanmar government. Meanwhile, the country’s lead - ers and Buddhist monks continue to grow in their animosity to Islam. While some international sources are calling the present (2017) phase of the Rohingya’s explusion genocide, Myanmar Army commander Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has remarked that it is now time to complete the “un - finished business” of “clearing the Rohingya,” a task that dates back to World War II. 10 There is an urgent need for Muslim social scientists and academic in - stitutions in Southeast Asia to revisit the history of Muslim-Buddhist rela - tions and to come up with new approaches that are relevant to the age of Asia’s rise. Neglect of this enterprise is already rendering Southeast Asian ajiss34-4-noconfrep_ajiss 11/3/2017 9:31 AM Page 103 Yusuf: Nationalist Ethnicities as Religious Identities 103 Muslim minorities mere “consumers” who are irrelevant to shaping the de - velopment and progress of Buddhist countries from Myanmar to China and Japan. Introduction Myanmar is a hard and a difficult country, born out of the ashes of the mur - der of its freedom fighter General Aung San, who was assasinated on July 19, 1947, just a few months before the the country’s independence on Jan - uary 4, 1948. His legacy of seeking integration, as well as the violence as - sociated with his murder, continues to impact Myanmar. 11 Since its independence, Myanmar has adopted an isolationist position at the regional and international levels (e.g., it did not join the British Commonwealth). In its sixty-nine years of existence, the country has seen close and sometimes tense relations among the government, the army, and Buddhism: both in re - lation to the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (the ultimate authority for all ecclesiastical matters) and the Buddhist monastic associations (of which the anti-Muslim radical nationalist organization called Ma Ba Tha, or the 969 movement, is at the forefront). 12 Just as Muslim radicals or nationalist Islam do not represent Islam, the ethnic versions of Buddhism in Myanmar do not represent the wisdom of the Buddha. In Myanmar, Buddhism has been interpretated in a way de - signed to Burmanize the country, to construct an “ethnocratic” nation. Bur - manization means that the majority Bamar ethnic group maintains political, ethnic, religious, and cultural dominon over the nation. The 135 distinct groups officially divided into eight “major national ethnic races” (i.e., Bamar, Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan) and minori - ties, including the immigrant Muslim community (e.g., Indians, Chinese, the Zerbadee Muslims, those identified as kalla , or dark-skinned) must cul - turally assimilate into the Burman way of life. 13 Meanwhile, the Burmans and other ethnic groups have a pathological, racialized hatred towards the Rohingya, those seen as sub-human, illegal migrants from Bangladesh, who are not welcome. 14 Since 2015, thanks to global communications and social media, Muslims around the world have become aware of the presence of these Muslims who have been facing discrimination and violence in Myanmar.
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